Serco announces contract cuts at AWE

Serco is one of the three companies that run the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), alongside Lockheed Martin and Jacobs.

Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC) attended the Serco AGM this year at Linklaters.

AWPC had written to Serco ahead of their AGM about their multi-billion contract to run AWE, proposing that they sell this particular holding.

The AWE contract is Serco's largest. Serco have announced during and ahead of the AGM that the next pricing period at AWE from April 2013 to March 2018 has been agreed with the MoD with an annual revenue to Serco of around £300m from making nuclear warheads. They also indicated, however, that there would be savings against the future programme. This is concerning because if efficiencies to save money were to lead to shortcuts on safety there could be serious consequences. The Directors said the contract milestones have not been changed in this next pricing period but would not be drawn on whether there will be changes to the Site Development Context Plan as a result of these savings. They indicated that efficiency changes would be made across the whole AWE redevelopment.